the quiet stone安靜的石頭

this work began as an attempt to make a quiet, balanced stone, a form that felt soft, rounded, and steady. stones often symbolize silence and endurance, and i wanted this piece to hold a kind of stillness that a person might enter, like a quiet form of flow.

the stone, unexpectedly, exploded in the kiln. what was once a single silent form fractured into many pieces. instead of discarding them, i rebuilt the stone using real stones as an inner structure, placing each ceramic shard back onto the surface. the cracks formed a new kind of quietness: one shaped by rupture, weight, and reconstruction.

around the rebuilt stone, i wrote rings of mirrored text. i learned to write this way when Iiwas around seventeen, partly because expressing myself through ordinary language has always felt difficult or embarrassing. mirror writing creates a small delay, a gentle barrier. the words are visible, but they require time and attention to read. only those who choose to slow down can understand them, and that feels close to how i experience my own communication, not hidden, but not immediately accessible.

this slow, repetitive action extended the silence outward. the final work became an acceptance that quietness is not always smooth or whole. sometimes it breaks, but it can still hold itself together and still be understood by those willing to come close.